Into the Mystic

Summary

RISK! – Into the Mystic (May 28, 2026)
Hosted by Kevin Allison

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Episode Overview

In this “look back” episode, RISK! host Kevin Allison revisits the classic 2014 episode “Into the Mystic,” dedicated to jaw-dropping true stories centered around encounters with the mystical, miraculous, or unexplainable—a higher power, moments of transcendence, or uncanny revelations. Through three deeply personal stories, the episode explores faith, fear, and connection, as told by three remarkable women whose lives were touched by the mysterious.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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[03:47] – Story 1: “Just Believe” by Christine Lee

Summary

Episcopal priest Christine Lee recounts her complicated relationship with faith, skepticism around miracles, and a transformative, humbling experience of witnessing a miraculous healing in her own church. Initially reluctant even to pray for a congregant’s injured knee, Christine finds herself challenged and ultimately inspired by the unshakeable faith of a homeless parishioner.

Highlights & Memorable Moments

• Christine’s skepticism of “faith healers”:
  “I remember seeing some 20/20 special … they would plant people in the congregation and essentially fake miraculous healings. … it was just despicable to take advantage of people who were already vulnerable.” (04:13)

• Attending a charismatic conference, wrestling with authentic faith versus experience:
  “There was something about being in this official role as a spiritual leader that was making me feel this sense of disparity between what I believed and what I was actually experiencing.” (05:10)

• Witnessing her friend Corey’s spontaneous healing:
  “He squatted down and bent his knee. And I’ve never been able to do that without feeling pain. In that moment, I felt no pain at all.” (07:30)

• Reluctance to pray for another congregant’s knee, trying to deflect:
  “I didn’t want to pray for her. … What if she doesn’t get healed? That would be on me.” (09:52)

• The faith of Walter Marcus, a homeless church member, leading the prayer:
  “He said he was from the Caribbean … his faith, I think, made him look even younger than he was. Walter prayed, ‘God, thank you for loving Anna. You are a God who heals. … We pray you would heal this knee right now in the name of Jesus.’” (11:45)

• The moment of healing, and Christine’s disbelief:
  “She turned around, with a shocked look on her face, and said, ‘The pain is completely gone.’ … She ran up four more flights of stairs.” (13:55)
  “I stood there at the bottom of the stairs thinking to myself, no way, no way.” (14:33)

• Walter’s challenge to Christine’s doubt:
  “‘Christine, believe and don’t doubt.’” (14:38)

• Anna’s guilty gratitude:
  “Why would God heal her knee and not someone else’s? … In the end, maybe it’s not for you to try and figure it out—but rather, just to receive this miracle as a gift and be thankful and share your story.” (15:10)

• Christine’s reflection:
  “Faith is faith. It’s like love, you know, it’s not something that can be explained rationally or proved scientifically.” (15:55)

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[20:08] – Story 2: Lulu’s Rapture

Summary

Lulu recounts a traumatic and surreal summer as a ten-year-old, when a neighbor’s brain-injured son subjected her to apocalyptic Christian horror stories about the Rapture, the Antichrist, and the Mark of the Beast. The tales preyed on her deepest vulnerabilities—mirroring her own mother’s coldness—and left her with lasting anxiety and fear, culminating in a childhood conversion prompted by terror rather than faith.

Highlights & Memorable Moments

• Describing a household marked by neglect and emotional abuse:
  “My mother was nasty and ill-tempered … Childcare was not top of her list of priorities.” (20:33)

• Introduction of Bobby, the schizophrenic neighbor:
  “You might think a 10-year-old and a 19-year-old schizophrenic wouldn’t have anything to talk about, but you’d be wrong.” (22:16)

• Bobby’s fire-and-brimstone teaching:
  “Have you heard the good news? … Jesus had died for my sins.” (22:28)
  “In order not to go to hell, I had to ‘accept Jesus into my heart as my personal savior.’ Over the next three months, Bobby proceeded to tell me everything a nervous 10-year-old would never want to know about the world ending.” (23:00)

• Visions of apocalypse:
  “In the next few days … people will start to be floating up into heaven. That’s called the Rapture.” (23:35)
  “If you take the barcode, God will immediately cast you into a lake of fire; if you don’t, you will be executed by the state. I am damned if I do and damned if I don’t.” (24:40)

• Real-world events amplifying her terror:
  “He’s using real-world examples which I didn’t really understand, to absolutely horrify me and make me think that he’s got proof.” (25:17)

• Lulled into accepting Jesus by existential fear:
  “One night at the end of the summer … I accept Jesus into my heart as my personal savior. Because going to hell was one thing, but going to hell with my mother was a risk I was not willing to take.” (29:17)

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[31:33] – Story 3: “The Connections” by Jen Kwok

Summary

Comedian, actress, and writer Jen Kwok recounts a rare, mystical moment of transcendence and clarity after a traumatic loss. Following the sudden heart attack and subsequent death of her then–fiancé’s father, Jen finds herself flooded with a powerful sense of love, connection, and “oneness” during a quiet ride into Manhattan.

Highlights & Memorable Moments

• Previously struggling with depression and the feeling of isolation:
  “Recurring image … of myself standing on a dark stage alone, with a theater spotlight literally inside my torso. … I couldn’t picture it turning out into the world.” (31:53)

• The trauma of sudden loss:
  “He had been to the doctor the week before, and they said he was in excellent health. … luck would have it, there was an off-duty fireman there that day … so he survived the heart attack, but he had brain damage.” (33:31)

• The family’s grief:
  “We were just in this tiny bubble of sadness that just absorbed any sort of happiness, any. Anything.” (36:49)

• Tom’s pain:
  “‘When the time came, I was going to ask him how to be a dad.’ … That hit me again out of nowhere.” (38:19)

• Jen’s decision amid grief:
  “‘I’m going to pursue performing and writing for three more years … then we should start a family.’” (38:43)

• Mystical moment on the express bus:
  “I reached this state of calm that I’d never felt before in my life. … everything was glowing. … Every single person who came on the bus, I just saw beauty in their faces. … I felt connected to everything, and it was amazing.” (39:00; 41:18)

• The feeling of cosmic connection:
  “I was aware of every detail at the same time. … And I would see Tom’s energy and his mom’s energy and his dad’s energy, like, watching over them. … this connection that I couldn’t explain.” (41:39)

• The fleeting nature of enlightenment:
  “This feeling, it only lasted about an hour. It subsided as soon as I walked into work. … I don’t know if it was a short span of enlightenment. … But I’m still grateful for it. Thank you.” (42:33)

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Notable Quotes

• Christine Lee (to herself, echoed by Walter Marcus):
  “Christine, believe and don’t doubt.” (14:38)

• Lulu:
  “This imperious, unforgiving, ill-tempered God makes complete sense to me because I’m living with an imperious, ill-tempered, unforgiving mother.” (26:06)

• Jen Kwok:
  “Every single person who came on the bus, I just saw beauty in their faces. I felt connected to everything, and it was amazing.” (41:18)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [03:47] Christine Lee’s story: “Just Believe”
• [20:08] Lulu’s “Rapture” story
• [31:33] Jen Kwok’s story: “The Connections”

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Episode Tone & Language

True to the RISK! podcast’s ethos, these stories are deeply personal, raw, and unflinchingly honest. The narrators’ tones move from skepticism to awe (Christine), terror to bittersweet humor (Lulu), and profound grief to transcendent wonder (Jen), inviting the listener into the emotional heart of each story. The language is vivid, at times unfiltered, always compassionate, and never shying away from the complexity of the “mystic” moments at the center.

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Conclusion

“Into the Mystic” is a quintessential RISK! episode, featuring three diverse, moving accounts of ordinary lives suddenly brushing up against the miraculous, the mysterious, or the inexplicable. Each story is a testament to the way the mystical can disrupt, comfort, or forever change, even the most skeptical among us—and how, sometimes, the greatest risk is simply to believe.

Transcript

[Child]

Mom, can you tell me a story?

[Narrator/Host]

Sure.

[Christine Lee]

Once upon a time, a mom needed a new car.

[Narrator/Host]

Was she brave?

[Christine Lee]

She was tired mostly.

[Narrator/Host]

But she went to Carvana.com and found

[Christine Lee]

a great car at a great price.

[Narrator/Host]

No secret treasure map required.

[Child]

Did you have to find a dragon?

[Narrator/Host]

Nope. She bought it 100% online from her bed, actually. Was it scary?

[Christine Lee]

Honey, it was as unscary as car buying could be.

[Child]

Did the car have a sunroof?

[Christine Lee]

It did, actually.

[Narrator/Host]

Okay, good story.

[Christine Lee]

Car buying.

[Narrator/Host]

You'll want to tell stories about.

[Christine Lee]

Buy your car today on Carvana.

[Narrator/Host]

Delivery fees may apply.

[Karina Bemisdurfer]

Delivery. Did you ever hear about the selfie that solved a murder or the jury that used a Ouija board to speak to a victim? If that made you pause, you need to listen to Morning cup of Murder. I'm Karina Bemisdurfer, and every single day on Morning cup of Murder, I tell one chilling true crime story tied to that exact day in history. With over 2,500 episodes to binge, you'll never run out of dark stories to start your morning with. Go. Go listen to Morning cup of Murder wherever you get your podcasts. And remember, stay safe,

[Kevin Allison]

You sweet holy motherfucking jackasses. Is today's episode called into the Mystic? Of course it's called into the Mystic. How true. Truly it is. The thing is, every Thursday we release these special episodes where we look back at content from our earlier years. This week, it's an episode that premiered in February of 2014. That's an episode we call into the Mystic.

[Narrator/Host]

Whoa, whoa, whoa,

[Kevin Allison]

Whoa.

[Fletcher]

Hello, kids. This is Risk, the show where people tell true stories they never thought they'd dare to share. I'm Kevin Allison, and this is our old favorite, Sean Lee. Behind me now, calling this week's episode into the Mystic. Three stories from three remarkable ladies who. Who found themselves bumping up against something. Something like a higher power. Perhaps in just a bit we're gonna

[Kevin Allison]

hear from the remarkable New York based storyteller Lulu.

[Fletcher]

But before that, Christine Lee is back. Christine took one of our [e-mail], told this story in class and I just had to have her come on over to my house and record it. She is just a beautiful soul and happens to be an Episcopal priest. And so, without further ado, here she is now. This is Christine Lee with a story we call Just Believe.

[Christine Lee]

I stood there in the stairwell of my church with a look of shock and disbelief on my face at what I had just witnessed. There was a man named Walter Marcus who was homeless standing next to me. And when he saw the look on my face, he said to me, christine, believe and don't doubt. Here I was a minister in my white religious robes, and there he was, a homeless man in his dirty clothes and worn out shoes, telling me to believe and not doubt. Despite the fact that I grew up in and around church and believed in God, I'd always been a bit skeptical about so called miracles. I remember seeing some 20, 20 special a while ago about faith healers who would wear these hidden earphones and microphones and they would plant people in the congregation and essentially fake miraculous healings. And then they would pass the offering plate around and tell people that if you have enough faith, faith and cash, that God would heal you. And I thought that that was just despicable to take advantage of people who were already vulnerable because they were ill and to hype up this atmosphere of unfounded hope and then squeeze money out of them. This one fall, my friend Marian invited me to a charismatic conference. And charismatics are a wing of the church that emphasize that God is a supernatural God who acts in a supernatural way, and that miracles are actually normal for the Christian life. I was a little bit skeptical, but I was also feeling a little desperate. That fall, I had just gone on staff at my church, all angels as a minister, and there was something about being in this official role as a spiritual leader that was making me feel this sense of disparity between what I believed and what I was actually experiencing as a priest. You represent God to people, you teach people about God, and you're expected to know about God, not just intellectually, but experientially. You talk about God all the time, but there are times when it seems like God isn't really real. I was really feeling that gap between, between what I was teaching people and what I was actually experiencing in my own life. And so I was struggling. Well, at this conference, the pastor at the front would call out various ailments, and if you had that particular ailment, you would stand up, he would pray for you, and then if you had experienced healing, you would then wave your arms to let him know that you'd been healed. I was trying to be open, but I was unsure what to think. Well, one of the nights, the pastor asked people who had knee problems to stand, and I saw my friend Corey, who was sitting a few rows in front of me, stand up. Now, Corey had struggled with pain in his knees for many years, and he had difficulty bending his knee and walking downstairs without pain. The pastor prayed for all of those knees. And Corey was able to bend his knee for the first time without pain. And afterwards, as we were talking about it, he said to me, so I was feeling kind of skeptical. But when the pastor got up there and he called out knees, I just decided to go for it. What the heck? What would be the harm in me just standing up and being prayed for? But then when he said, try to do something you couldn't do before, I squatted down and bent my knee. And I've never been able to do that without feeling pain. And in that moment, I felt no pain at all. And so, you know, it's one thing if you have a stranger at a conference or someone on TV who's claiming that they've been healed. But this was my good friend Corey, who I knew and trusted. And so I was amazed. I was astounded and kind of pumped, like, wow. As a priest, you pray for sick people all the time, but rarely do you ever see someone actually get healed right there on the spot. So that Sunday night, back at church, after our evening service, I was standing at the sanctuary door greeting people on their way out when this couple named James and Nana stopped by to say hi. We were talking about our weeks, and I told them about this conference that I'd been at and about Corey's knee being healed. Well, at that point, they looked at each other. Anna said to me, well, I could use healing for my knee. And she told me that two weeks earlier, she had been on this crowded bus on her way to LaGuardia Airport, and her legs were packed really tightly with other people's luggage all around her. The bus jerked suddenly to a stop, and she felt her knees go pop and a searing pain go through her knee. And she said that for the past two weeks, she'd been pulling herself up and down the railings of the subway stairs. And that she could barely even get to the stairs on the second floor of our church, where our sanctuary was that night. And the pain had been so excruciating. And finally she had decided that she was going to go see a doctor that week. Well, in that moment, I felt a little put on the spot. I just told this story about Corrie's knee being healed. And here was this unhealed knee right in front of me. And so I didn't want to pray for her. I thought to myself, what if she doesn't get healed? And that would be on me. So I said, you know, there's this woman named Marian who's really into praying for people. She's good at it. And when she's here next Sunday, we'll ask her to pray for you. And Anna, the kind soul that she is, and wanting me to save face, I'm sure said, yeah, sure, that sounds fine, you know, let's do that. Then her husband James, you know, so simply and earnestly said in that moment, well, why can't we just pray for Anna right now? Just awkward silence now, like right now. And I scramble to think of some good excuse for why we couldn't pray for Anna right now. But unfortunately, I could not think of one. So we all trooped downstairs into the floor of the church. And I did not want to crash and burn by myself, so I grabbed Corey of the healed knee and I grabbed Walter Marcus, who was on his way to the community meal. After service, we gathered around Anna, laid our hands on her knee, and we began to pray. I remember feeling so tentative as I prayed, just wanting to manage expectations, maybe more my own than anyone else's, and praying something like God, so Anna's hurt her knee, and if it's your will, maybe you can heal her. But you know, even if you don't, that's okay. And can you send her some good doctors who can give her good advice about how to treat her knee? It was the lamest prayer for healing ever. And then Walter Marcus began to pray. I loved Walter Marcus. He had been coming to our church for a number of years. He was homeless and had been through some really difficult things in his life, but faith had always brought him through. He said he was from the Caribbean, had this beautiful black skin that was so smooth it was like a child. And there was something about his spirit and his faith, I think that made him look even younger than he was. Walter prayed, God, thank you for loving Anna. You are a God who heals. And we are coming to you in faith on behalf of our sister Anna. And we pray that you would heal this knee right now in the name of Jesus. We pray that you would strengthen the joints and the bone and the muscle around this knee, and that you would send your healing spirit to touch her knee and restore it to how you created and intended it to be. And I'm not even doing the prayer justice, but it was this beautiful, faith filled, authoritative prayer for Anna. After he said amen, we all opened our eyes and Corey said to Anna, try to do something that you couldn't do before. And she said, well, I couldn't walk up these stairs without pain and without grabbing onto the railing. And so she turned around and slowly she took one step up the stairs. And then she took another step and another step until she reached the landing. While we all watched silently, I braced myself for her to turn around and for the disappointment to register on her face as she said, well, it still hurts, but thanks for praying for me. Instead, she turned around with a shocked look on her face and said, the pain is completely gone. And then she disappeared as she ran up four more flights of stairs. And I stood there at the bottom of the stairs thinking to myself, no way, no way. And that's when Walter Marcus turned and looked at me and said, christine, believe and don't doubt. At that moment, Anna reappeared, still in shock. And then she just burst into tears. And the next day she emailed us to thank us for praying for her. How loved she had felt that night. But also that she was struggling because she felt guilty. You know, why would God heal her knee and not someone else's? You know, why would God heal her and not her friend who has ms? It didn't make any sense to her, but she couldn't deny what she had experienced. She said that James told her, you know, in the end, maybe it's not for you to try and figure it out, but rather just to receive this miracle as a gift from God and be thankful and share your story. We can always make up an explanation for why something happened. You know, maybe it was just a coincidence, maybe it was psychosomatic. But I guess in the end, faith is faith. It's like love, you know, it's not something that can be explained rationally or proved scientifically. And so in that moment, this priest decided to listen to a homeless man and just believe.

[Sports Announcer/Commentator]

Just a second. The great coach Jesus Christ of Christianity is sending a substitute into the game. Let's check. He's coming onto the field. Yes, it's the real need for the Christian team right now. The real need. The Holy Spirit coming. And the players seem to be invigorated by the presence of this powerful new player. And the forces of evil are bracing their defenses as we're ready to go back to action. There'll be time for just one more running play in this game as the Christian team goes into the huddle. And it's the Holy Spirit calling the signals. Nothing. Nothing Score. As Christianity comes out of the huddle. Alright, here's the play. The ball is snapped and it goes to average Christian. He circles his own right in and interference forms in front of him. He makes his downfield cut at the 15. He's up to the 20 running behind prayer, love, Bible study, witnessing faithfulness and church attendance. They're headed down the far sideline to the 35, now the 40. And humility runs along, protecting from the rear as the great wave sweeps across the 50 there to the 40, the 30 in the open with a clear field at the 20, the 10, the 5. And it's a touchdown. And the ball game is all over,

[Narrator/Host]

Folks.

[Kevin Allison]

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[Child]

In 1973, I was 10 years old and I lived in a small town outside of Pittsburgh with my mother and my father. Our household was not a harmonious place. My mother was nasty and ill tempered and she did not want to be a parent. My baby teeth, before they had a chance to fall out on their own, actually decayed and turned black and then fell out. Childcare was not top of her list of priorities. Sometimes she would stop talking to me for a day or two. And I'm talking about when I was a little kid, six or seven years old. She just ignored me for the day. I went into a panic trying to figure out why are you ignoring me? What's wrong? Why are you mad at me? And she just wouldn't talk to me. And then the next day everything would be fine. She tortured me about my weight. She told me I was as big as a house and that no boy would ever like me. She was just an awful person. Something that happened every summer was the people would come up to our house because we had a front porch and the neighbors would come up to hang out and smoke cigarettes and drink coffee and gossip. And during this particular summer of 1973, one of our neighbors, Aunt Harriet, started bringing her 19 year old son with her. Bobby was his name. My mother explained to me that apparently he and his friends had been drinking or smoking pot or taking LSD and they'd gotten to a car accident. During this accident, my mother explained to me, Bobby's brain shook around inside of his skull and now he was funny, as she put it. I later learned that he had been diagnosed as a schizophrenic and now he needed to be watched all the time. So he moved back home. And every evening in the summertime when Aunt Harriet came, she brought Bobby with her. I didn't like Bobby. He was really scary to me. He was about 5 9, 5 10, kind of husky because he played football in high school. And he had this sort of wild eyed stare and this weird creepy laugh. And he always laughed at the wrong moment. And so I was afraid of him and I didn't want to be there when he was there. I wanted to go in the backyard and play. But my mother said, no, you have to be here because we don't want Aunt Harriet to feel badly. So when Aunt Harriet and Bobby there, I hung out on the front porch. And after a couple of visits, my mother and Aunt Harriet shooed us away because, you know, I realized that Bobby and I were kind of babysitting each other. Aunt Harriet was now strapped with this adult son who couldn't be left alone. And my mother was strapped with this 10 year old daughter who she just didn't want ever. So, you know, we were babysitting each other in another part of the house or in the backyard. You might think that a 10 year old and a 19 year old schizophrenic wouldn't have anything to talk about, but you'd be Wrong. As it happens, one of the first things Bobby ever said to me was, have you heard the good news? And I thought, no, I don't know, the ice cream man is here. No, the good news was apparently that Jesus had died for my sins. And I was a little bewildered. But I knew who Jesus was. I heard about him in Sunday school. He was that hippie guy with the long hair and the beard, sometimes worked with a lamb. He loved everybody. This wasn't the Jesus or the God that Bobby wanted to tell me about. See, in addition to the good news that Jesus died for my sins, there was some bad news. And that was I was going to hell. See, in order to not go to hell, I had to not just believe in God, not just believe in Jesus, but I had to have accepted him into my heart as my personal savior. And over the course of the next three months, Bobby proceeded to tell me everything a nervous 10 year old would never want to know about the world ending. And I went a little something like this in the next few days. In fact, any minute now you're going to look around either at the playground or walking down your street and, and people will start to be floating up into heaven. And that's going to be something called the Rapture. And that's where God collects all of his God fearing people and brings them to heaven to protect them from what's going to happen next. And what's going to happen next is called the Tribulation. And because you haven't accepted Jesus into your heart, you are going to be one of those people who've been left behind. Now you're not totally screwed. You have the next 12 years to make amends to God. And during this 12 year period called the Tribulation, a man will come into power and rule the whole world. And this man will be very handsome and he will preach a message of peace and everybody will love him. But don't be fooled because he's actually the Antichrist. So the Antichrist will come into power. And one of the rules he will make is that in order to buy or sell anything, including free food and shelter, you will have to get a tattoo on your right hand or on your forehead. And we'll call this the Mark of the Beast. Because in addition to being called the Antichrist, he also has the friendly name the Beast. So Bobby explains to me that I will be forced to take the mark of the Beast as a barcode tattooed on my right hand or my forehead. Which is all well and good, but then Bobby explains to me that if I do take the barcode, God will immediately cast me into a lake of fire. If I don't take the barcode, I will be executed by the state. So I am damned if I do and damned if I don't. I am listening to this, wrapped in attention. It may sound unbelievable to you now, but to a 10 year old kid this is like the worst scary story ever. And he's peppering the story with anecdotes about things that are happening in the real world that indicate that the end of the world is actually coming. For instance, 1973 is when Roe v. Wade becomes a law and women are allowed to abort their babies. And this is horrifying to Bobby. And also our Vice President resigns from office in 1973 and there's a war in the Middle east because Egypt and Syria have invaded Israel. The other thing is that the ira, the Irish Republican army is blowing up train stations in Europe. And he's using these real world examples which I didn't really understand, to absolutely horrify me and make me think that he's got proof that all of this is actually gonna happen. And again, I'm sucking this all up and I'm believing it. And I know that the Jesus that I learned about in Bible school is totally implausible to me. This hippie guy who loves everybody just make any sense to me. This imperious, unforgiving, ill tempered God makes complete sense to me because I'm living with an imperious, ill tempered, unforgiving mother. So I'm having anxiety attacks, I can't sleep at night, I start to bite my nails. And finally I go to my mother. I say to her, I'm scared, you know, I'm afraid the rapture's gonna come and I'm not gonna go to heaven. And she totally brushes me off and says, well then you'd better behave. So this continues and during one of our chats, Bobby sort of lowers his voice conspiratorially and says to me, you know, I have to tell you something, your mother's not buying any of this and she's not accepting Jesus and so she's going to go to hell. And I have two simultaneous thoughts when he says this to me. First is that I don't think a grown up should be telling me that my mother's going to hell. And the second reaction is gigglingly, oh my God, she's going to go to hell. Because I'm at the age where I'm starting to hate my mother. In addition to knowing that she's in charge. She's Mom. She's in charge. She's in charge of everything. I'm starting to hate her, too. And I have a little moment of glee knowing that she's going to hell. So I go to her with that. I tell her again, you know, I'm getting really scared. The rapture is coming. And Bobby says, you're going to hell. And my mother stops in her tracks suddenly because it's about her. She gets so angry. I've never seen my mother this angry at someone who wasn't me. And her face turns red and she just sort of sends me to the backyard. Go to the backyard. And then there's this lull. A couple of weeks go by, and suddenly I realize Aunt Harriet and Bobby aren't coming up to our house anymore. And suddenly there's no more talk of God and there's no more talk of the rapture and there's no more talk of the tribulation. And they're sort of just cut out of our lives and life starts to begin to go back to our version of normal. But I'm still terrified. I'm still looking out the window and hanging out at the playground, waiting for people to be sucked up into heaven and terrified that I'm going to go to hell. So one night at the end of the summer in my little bedroom in my little twin bed, I accept Jesus into my heart as my personal savior. Because going to hell was one thing, but going to hell with my mother was a risk I was not willing to take.

[Poet/Narrator]

A regretting, not betting for, for better, forever indebted and shuffling tether to shuffle

[Christine Lee]

the shit, trying to get it together.

[Poet/Narrator]

But.

[Fletcher]

This is a risk. This is Stoney. Buy me now. And we just heard from Lulu. Well, listen, folks, we need your story pitches. Pitch us stories any time of the year at our submissions [e-mail] submissions. Just think on those moments in your life that you were most emotionally wound up in and pitch us those stories. Our last story here today comes to us from Jen Kwok, who you can find at J e n k w o k.tumblr.com A tremendously talented actress, comedian, writer here in New York City. She told this one at the risk live show that we do every fourth Thursday at the People's Improv Theater in New York City. Here she is now. This is Jen Kwok with a story we call the connections.

[Narrator/Host]

So two years ago, January 3, 2012, I was sitting on an express bus going from Staten island to Manhattan. And I was listening to my ipod, Florence and the machine, and I was writing in my notebook about how I'd felt about the past week. And I reached this state of calm that I'd never felt before in my life. I had just gotten out of a really long battle with depression, and I always had this recurring image in my head of myself standing on this dark stage alone with a theater spotlight literally inside my torso. And it was always turned inward. And I couldn't picture it turning out into the world because I was afraid to share. I was afraid to connect. And I didn't believe in myself or my talent or whether or not I even deserved to be alive. But in this particular moment on this express bus, that image was different in two ways. For once, I was able to see it shining out. And I was also seeing it first person, for the first time ever. So I saw myself with this light shining inside of me, bursting out like a sun, like a star. It was like nothing I'd ever felt before. And my eyes were closed and I could see it so clearly. I opened my eyes, I looked outside the bus, and everything was glowing. I mean, glowing. It was beautiful. It was storefronts, it was cars, trees, just fucking glowing. Things were a lot different earlier that week. Tom, my husband, then fiance, and I were getting ready for Christmas with his parents on Staten Island. Christmas Eve morning, they went out for a jog at the park with their dog, Grafles. I had just gotten into the shower, I had just wet my hair and I heard a knock on the door. I felt Tom rush past the door and he yelled something that I couldn't make out. And it turned out that his father had suffered a serious heart attack. It came out of nowhere. He had been to the doctor the week before and they said he was in excellent health. And luckily there was an off duty fireman there that day jogging as well. And he was able to give ED CPR immediately. So he survived the heart attack, but he had brain damage. In order to save whatever brain function he had left, the doctors sedated him and they put him in what they call induced hypothermia. So we went to see him in the icu. And every person in Tom's family looked completely different than I had ever seen them in my life. Tom, my husband, who's a 6 5, Clark Kent looking guy, he was just slumped over holding his dad's hand, which I'm sure he had not done since he was a kid. And Krista, Tom's mom, who is this very sweet, but Semi stoic German schoolteacher was just broken down. She was talking to her husband, begging him to get better, telling him how much we loved him, whether or not he could hear. And Ed just looked like he was sleeping, but because of the hypothermia machine which was keeping his body cool, he was shivering and it was this full body shiver. And when he would shake, his head would bob up and down like he was saying, yes, I hear you. Yes, I'm going to get better. And Ed was always a quiet guy, but he liked to make these, like, punny Irish dad jokes. And he always did them in this, like, vaudevillian accent. And I remember the last thing he said to me before the walk that day. He said, we're gonna have scallops tonight. Mmm, scallops. And it was Christmas Eve. Tom dropped me back home. His mom and him stayed there with Ed. And when I got home, I was looking for food in the fridge, and I opened it up and there was that big bag of scallops that we were never gonna eat. And it hit me. Was I in a dead man's house? I was so freaked out. The terror just entered my body. And I went to the bathroom and I looked around and I had just been. Imagine all his old dead skin cells just all over everything. And I imagined him, this darker version of himself coming to me like a ghost trapped between life and death and demanding to know where his family was and why was I the only person there in his house. Well, the next morning was Christmas, and we went to see Ed again. And now instead of just shivering, he was having full on seizures every time the seizure sedation came down. And the doctors literally had no idea what was going to happen. The day after Christmas was Tom's 30th birthday. And Krista made Pillsbury croissants like she always did. And Tom opened his presents like he always did. And when he opened his birthday card from his dad, he just lost it. And we were just in this tiny bubble of sadness that just absorbed any sort of happiness, any. Anything. And I remembered how weird it felt when my sister texted me from our family's huge Christmas party in California. She was like, ugh, too much family. And here we were, just the three of us, just wishing things could be normal. And a few more days went by. And one morning, Tom and I were getting ready to go to the hospital, brushing our teeth. He spit in the sink. And he just turned and looked at me and he said, if we ever have kids, we should have two. And we had Never talked about having kids before. And I was now profoundly aware of how alone he felt through this entire experience. And a week went by. It was New Year's Day. Tom called me from the hospital, and he said, we have to make a decision about whether or not to pull the plug. And he came home. Later, he explained to me that his parents had watched this movie once, a lifetime movie or something, where a guy was on a machine, and his dad started crying, which he never did. And he told his mom, if this ever happens to me, do not let me stay this way. So we knew what the decision was going to be. So Krista came home, and we just all cried with this huge sobbing mess. And it was a sort of pain that I'd never felt before or knew was even possible. And even grafles. The dog came over, just confused, licking our hands, trying to do something. I don't know. Later on, Tom broke down again in his room, and he said, I'm not even crying for my dad anymore. I'm just crying for my mom because she met him when she was 19, and he's all she's ever known. So we went to bed. Tom was in his childhood bed, and I was on an inflatable mattress. Our heads were perpendicular to each other, and we were just laying there. I knew that we were both awake. And I said, tom, remember when we first met? And there was a long pause. Finally, he said, yeah, there's another long pause.

[Christine Lee]

And

[Narrator/Host]

he said, I wanted to play with your hair right away. And he'd never told me that before. So the next morning, Tom and his mom had their coffee. They went off to the hospital, and I stayed at home. I was in. In this vortex, checking my email, Facebook, Twitter, Scorpio's horoscope, this loop of trying to figure out what to do, how to numb myself, I don't know. And I was in my own cyber waiting room, and I felt okay not being there because they had known Ed pretty much their whole lives, and I had only seen him, you know, handful of Thanksgivings or dinners. But they came home, and it was like actual grieving time. And it sucked. Christo went up to her room, and Tom and I were together in the living room. And he stopped crying at one point. And he said when the time came, I was going to ask him how to be a dad. It hit me again out of nowhere. And later I was brushing my teeth, getting ready for bed, and this decision just came to me, this rush, it was so clear. And I said, tommy, I'm going to pursue Performing and writing for three more years. Find some kind of success, whatever that means. And then we should start a family. And he said, that sounds like a good plan. And the next morning, something strange happened to me. I was sitting on the express bus from Staten island to Manhattan. And everything was so beautiful. Everything was glowing. And I couldn't understand it, but I fucking felt it more than anything I've felt in my life. And I looked out the window and everything was beautiful. The sky and the buildings. And every single person who came on the bus, I just saw beauty in their faces. I felt connected to everything, and it was amazing. And I would look out and I would see beyond, and I would see more. And I was aware of every detail at the same time. I saw every crisscross on a metal crane. And I saw every window on every building. And I felt the life that was inside. And I was aware of the atoms that made up all the people that were living these lives. And it just felt so infinite. And everything was possible. And we're all in it together. And then I felt Tom, his mom, my family. I felt them almost like they were there. And I saw Tom's energy and his mom's energy and his dad's energy, like, watching over them. And it was just this connection that I couldn't explain. It felt so real. And I felt like they were there. And at one point, I looked at a bus that was passing by and I saw a poster of Dustin Hoffman. And I felt connected to Dustin Hoffman. You guys, it was amazing. And this feeling, it only lasted about an hour. It subsided as soon as I walked into work. But I don't know if it was a short span of enlightenment. I don't know what it was. But it's what I imagined that enlightenment would feel like. And I wonder sometimes if I momentarily lost my mind. But I'm still grateful for it. Thank you.

[Poet/Narrator]

That was your life in the flash of an eye A burst of color and a slow decline A carbon copy cut out of your death the winding highway Coiled snake A speeding car the great escape A letter begging mother not to worry A time and place is long forgotten A doubt of shadow you you have chosen as a lost soul for every light on Broadway. Everything the city below you Uates the street lights explode around you the night and night it has one answer to these questions you been asking. You can't go home again. Not ever.

[Fletcher]

That's it for this episode, folks. This is Fletcher behind me. Now, if you would like to learn how to do this storytelling thing, find [e-mail] we do one on one training over Skype. We also do six week workshops in New York. One day workshops, two day workshops. We do corporate workshops for the staffs of businesses. We have an online course that you can find. You can do it in your own time, watch videos and work with a workbook. It's [e-mail] and remember folks, today's the day. Take a risk.

[Narrator/Host]

Satan is real.

[Poet/Narrator]

Working in spirit. You can see him and hear him in this world every day. Satan is real, working with power. He can tempt you and lead you astray.